Bandung, West Java (ANTARA) - West Java Governor M. Ridwan Kamil has expressed the hope that Japan will become the biggest investor in the province in the future due to the good relations between West Java and the East Asian country.
"We hope Japan will become the biggest investor later because so far, our friendship with Japan has been very good," he said in a written statement released here on Wednesday.
Several days ago, Kamil met with Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike in Japan. Kamil received a warm welcome from officials in Tokyo who expressed their admiration for the governor over his success in developing West Java.
Governor Koike said she was impressed with the current growth in West Java, which has managed to get through the COVID-19 pandemic well.
At the meeting, Kamil informed that West Java's economic growth is quite high, surpassing 5.5 percent per year.
"Based on data from Bank Indonesia (BI), West Java's economic growth is at 5.5 percent. The economic growth has been really good and the highest in Indonesia in five consecutive years," he said.
In the third quarter of 2022, West Java recorded 6.07 percent year-on-year (yoy) economic growth, an increase from the 5.68 percent growth recorded in the previous quarter.
The growth was the highest recorded in Java and was higher than the national economic growth of 5.72 percent yoy in the third quarter.
In terms of quarter-on-quarter (qoq) growth, West Java's economy also recorded positive growth of 1.17 percent in the third quarter of 2022, although it was slightly moderated compared to the previous quarter, when the figure was recorded at 3.72 percent.
Kamil noted that, currently, the value of the investment received by West Java has reached at least Rp175 trillion, with the highest investment flowing into the manufacturing sector, where the business growth rate has been recorded at least four percent yoy.
Furthermore, data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS) has shown that the unemployment figure in West Java declined from 2.53 million in August 2020 to 2.13 million as of August 2022.
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